[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----S.C., FLA., LA., OHIO, TENN., USA

[Rick Halperin]

July 7



SOUTH CAROLINA:

Court filing: Accused Charleston church killer Roof headed to death penalty 
trial?


Attorney Boyd Young, who specializes in representing defendants in death 
penalty trials, has filed notice in court that he will represent accused mass 
killer Dylann Roof in the state murder charges against Roof.

"Potential death penalty case" are words on top of Young's filing in the 
Charleston County clerk of court's office.

It will be up to to 9th Circuit Solicitor Scarlett Wilson to decide whether she 
will seek the death penalty in this case. She has made no announcement.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Wilson announced that Roof has been indicted on 3 
additional attempted murder charges. He already is facing 9 murder charges in 
connection with the June 17 mass killings at a Charleston church.

Tuesday's indictments of attempted murder relate to the 3 survivors of what is 
called a massacre of African-Americans at the hands of a white supremacist.

Attorney Young works in the capital trial division of the S.C. Commission on 
Indigent Defense, where he is deputy chief attorney. That division represents 
indigent defendants in death penalty trials statewide. The division not only 
provides legal representation to clients but also investigates cases.

Young was not available for comment.

Roof, 21, of Columbia, allegedly killed 9 African-Americans in a prayer meeting 
at Emanuel AME Church, according to warrants in the case. He was arrested hours 
later in Shelby, N.C.

Jack Swerling, a Columbia private criminal defense attorney, said Tuesday that 
Wilson will make her decision on whether to seek the death penalty on several 
factors, including community sentiment, whether the death penalty is 
appropriate and the wishes of the victims' families.

Another factor might be "If this crime does not qualify for the death penalty, 
with 9 victims, then what case would?" said Swerling.

"That would be a question people would ask," said Swerling, adding that Wilson 
is not likely to make her decision on that consideration, Swerling said.

Swerling has handled more that a dozen death penalty cases, including some 
seven that went to trial.

The cost of defending a death penalty case, which are ususally far more 
complicated than regular cases, can "run into the hundreds of thousands of 
dollars," Swerling said.

But, he said, "It's going to be a case where it's going to be difficult not to 
go for the death penalty," Swerling said.

(source: The State)






FLORIDA:

2 ways to make death penalty cases fairer -- The very day the Supreme Court 
upheld Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol, Florida moved to resume executing 
people. True, Justice Stephen Breyer's dissent laid a careful blueprint for 
declaring the death penalty unconstitutional, and with the court's 5-4 split 
and a presidential election on the way, abolition is a real possibility.


In the meantime, however, executions continue, and the process is beyond 
flawed. Even the most ardent capital punishment proponents should support two 
small changes that would improve fairness now for deciding who lives and who 
dies.

Among the many problems Breyer catalogs is the way jurors are chosen to serve. 
In capital cases, jurors must be willing to decide whether the defendant is 
guilty of a death-eligible crime. If so, then they must be willing to consider 
death as a possible punishment.

That much seems reasonable, and not very different from any other kind of case. 
Jurors should always carefully consider all of the evidence before making up 
their minds. If we allowed them to decide in advance whether the person was 
guilty, or which punishment was appropriate, we would not need to bother with a 
trial.

It seems reasonable, yet this process of "death-qualifying" jurors in fact 
causes significant unfairness. It skews jurors toward both guilt and death 
before they hear a single piece of evidence. In other words, death 
qualification encourages exactly what it is supposed to prevent: jurors 
deciding the issues without hearing the evidence. Only instead of jurors 
deciding in advance that they would not consider death, we get jurors deciding 
in advance that this person is guilty, and deserves to die.

Prospective jurors in capital cases see that those who state they would not 
vote for death are disqualified from serving. Decades of carefully constructed 
social science research studies repeatedly show that this causes a skewing 
effect. When those who state they would not vote for death are excused, 
prospective jurors take that to mean the defendant is guilty and deserves to 
die. The only task seems to be finding a jury of people who can do what must be 
done.

One small change would help: Truly bifurcate capital trials. Although capital 
cases have 2 phases (guilt and sentencing), many jurisdictions' laws require 
that the same jurors hear both. This unitary jury requirement should be 
repealed.

Without that requirement, the guilt-phase jury need not be death-qualified at 
all. Because the only issue those jurors will be deciding is guilt, there is no 
need to ask about their willingness to impose death. That would greatly reduce 
the biasing effect of death qualification at the guilt phase. If the defendant 
is convicted, a second jury would be seated, and those jurors would be 
death-qualified.

A 2nd small change would also help: Follow the existing law. Constitutionally, 
those who object to capital punishment in general must be permitted to serve. 
Only those who refuse to consider it in the particular case are properly 
disqualified.

Too often, though, people are disqualified because they say things like "I 
never would vote for death." What jurors' votes will be is not the question. 
Mandatory death sentences are unconstitutional, which means there is no case in 
which one must vote for death.

Mercy is always available; constitutionally, it has to be. What is required, 
though, is consideration - careful, thoughtful deliberation. All the law 
compels is that jurors think about whether life or death is the proper 
punishment. It cannot compel their conclusion.

This is a fine distinction, but it carries real consequences. Studies show that 
opposition to the death penalty is greater among certain demographic groups. 
Blacks, women and Democrats, for example, oppose the death penalty in greater 
numbers than others. That means that keeping death penalty opponents off of 
capital juries disproportionately shrinks those groups' representation. And 
fewer members of those groups on juries also makes conviction and death more 
likely.

The current process of death qualification unfairly skews jurors toward guilt 
and death. Repealing the unitary jury requirement would help. Allowing all the 
jurors who would consider death as a possibility to sit on capital cases, 
regardless of the ultimate conclusion they may draw, would help too.

If Breyer's dissent maps the way for the coming abolition, so much the better. 
But right now, today, we are condemning people to die, and the least we can do 
is make the system fairer. There is no time to waste.

(source: Column; Susan Rozelle is an associate dean and professor of law at 
Stetson University. Rozelle's article, "The Principled Executioner: Capital 
Juries' Bias and the Benefits of True Bifurcation," was cited in the U.S. 
Supreme Court's dissenting opinion in the case of Glossip vs. Gross. Her 
scholarship has also been cited by the New York Governor's Council on Capital 
Punishment, and by the Law Commission for England and Wales in its Report to 
Parliament recommending reform to the law of murder and manslaughter. She wrote 
this exclusively for the Tampa Bay Times)

***************

Flagler judge denies motion in death penalty appeal


William Gregory, who fatally shot his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend and her 
boyfriend with a shotgun in 2007, will remain on death row.

A hearing in April included Gregory's family members giving tearful testimony 
of the defendant's difficult upbringing and attorneys arguing that the 
defendant had ineffective counsel. Circuit Judge J. David Walsh ruled those 
arguments did not go far enough to set aside the judgment and sentences issued 
by a jury in April 2011.

Walsh's latest ruling, filed Monday, was made available to the News-Journal on 
Tuesday.

Gregory, now 32, committed the double murder on Aug. 21, 2007, when he sneaked 
into a Flagler Beach house and killed Skyler Meekins and Daniel Dyer, 22. 
Gregory and Meekins had a daughter, who was 1 year old at the time and was 
sleeping in the same house where the shootings took place.

Walsh ruled on a total of 12 claims filed by the defense. All were in favor of 
the state.

Regarding the claims of ineffective counsel, Walsh said Gregory's defense 
attorney "was thorough" with his investigation and that his trial strategy was 
"well-reasoned."

Gregory's new defense team also argued that the defendant's trial attorney, 
Gary Wood, did not call enough witnesses during the penalty phase of the trial.

Wood consulted with Gregory about his decisions to call the defendant's mother, 
Lynda Probert, and sister, Leigha Furmanek, to the stand and no other family 
members. He also declined to call a mental health expert designated by an 
attorney who was involved during the pretrial portion of the case. Wood said he 
excluded the expert, a certified forensic psychologist, because the witness 
would have had to rely so much on Gregory's extensive juvenile criminal record, 
according to Walsh's ruling.

Wood testified that he had sought to "minimize" Gregory's pattern of criminal 
behavior, which started at the age of 9. The more jurors were reminded of 
Gregory's arrest history, the more likely jurors would be swayed toward a death 
recommendation, Wood concluded.

Walsh called Wood's decision "clearly reasonable."

Additionally, Wood opted not to call distant relatives, many of whom had not 
been a part of Gregory's life for up to 20 years. Even some of Gregory's close 
relatives - his brother, Kory, and grandmother, Mary Lou Wilson - would not 
have been helpful on the stand, according to Wood's reasoning.

"Both had been very difficult to talk to," Walsh wrote in his ruling, referring 
to Wood's testimony. "Mrs. Wilson also had difficulty staying focused."

That left Furmanek and Lynda Wilson to "present the details and hardships of 
Mr. Gregory's childhood" to jurors, Walsh stated.

On the issue of keeping the witness list short, the judge was convinced Wood 
made a "strategic decision," according to the 12-page ruling.

Furmanek and Wilson testified during an evidentiary hearing in April about 
Gregory's drug abuse and that he was the victim of physical and sexual abuse as 
well as sustaining 2 cracked skulls - once as an infant and again when he was 7 
years old. Some of their testimony included new information that was not 
brought up at trial.

"While much more information came out about Mr. Gregory at the evidentiary 
hearing, it was about Mr. Gregory's almost continuous institutionalizations 
from (an early) age," Walsh stated. "This is exactly the type of information 
(Mr.) Wood was aware of and purposefully attempted to keep from the jury."

Gregory has the right to appeal Walsh's ruling within 30 days.

Gregory's daughter is in the custody of his family. Meekins' grandparents 
raised her until February 2014, at which time child services removed the girl 
from their home following allegations of abuse. Walsh then granted full custody 
to Gregory's family.

No one in the Meekins household has been charged with a crime related to the 
child abuse allegation.

(source: Daytona Beach News-Journal)




LOUISIANA:

Executions on hold for at least a year as Louisiana sorts out death penalty 
method


Executions in Louisiana are on hold for at least a year because the state 
doesn't have the drugs needed to put inmates to death, according to a court 
filing and a lawyer for a convicted child-killer.

Lawyers for Christopher Sepulvado and the state Department of Corrections were 
supposed to be in federal court Thursday to schedule a trial on the 
constitutionality of Louisiana's method of execution.

Instead, a federal judge on Tuesday delayed the trial and Sepulvado's execution 
- as well as 4 others on death row - until July 2016 as Louisiana tries to 
figure out how it can carry out the death penalty.

This is the 2nd time in a year that the state has asked to delay the trial.

States around the country have struggled to execute prisoners because of 
shortages of lethal injection drugs. In a few cases, it's taken an unusually 
long time for inmates to die from new drug combinations.

In the motion to delay the hearing, Department of Corrections attorney James 
Hilburn wrote that "it would be a waste of resources and time to litigate this 
matter at present" because the facts in the case are changing. He wrote that he 
expects those issues to be "more settled" by July 2016.

Hilburn declined to elaborate on the reasons for the delay.

Louisiana's current death-penalty protocol calls for a mix of hydromorphone and 
midazolam, the same drugs used last summer during an Arizona execution that 
took nearly 2 hours to complete. Louisiana's last known supplies of the drugs 
expired earlier this year.

Mercedes Montagnes, a lawyer for Sepulvado, said the state "came to us after 
they were unable to locate any legal source for lethal injection drugs and 
asked for another year to come up with a new method of execution or source of 
drugs."

Sepulvado, who was convicted of beating his stepson with a screwdriver and then 
submerging his body in scalding water, has delayed his execution several times 
in the past 2 years.

In his lawsuit, he argues that the state's execution method violates his 
constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

As part of that lawsuit, Sepulvado has sought to learn the exact procedure 
Louisiana will use to put him to death. The state has fought such disclosures 
in court and in response to public-records requests filed by The Lens.

Meanwhile, Louisiana corrections officials have gotten more creative in getting 
their hands on execution drugs and have considered new ways to carry out the 
death penalty.

In January 2014, as Sepulvado's last execution date approached, the Louisiana 
Department of Corrections turned to Lake Charles Memorial Hospital for 1 of the 
2 drugs it needed to execute him.

According to a hospital spokesman, the state lied to the Lake Charles 
pharmacist, saying the hydromorphone was for "a medical patient" rather than a 
prisoner on death row.

"At no time was Memorial told the drug would be used for an execution," 
spokesman Matt Felder said at the time.

The state considered getting another drug from an out-of-state compounding 
pharmacy not licensed in Louisiana, which would have been illegal.

In 2014, the Legislature considered reinstating electrocution. It's been 
outlawed since 1991.

At the request of Department of Corrections Secretary Jimmy LeBlanc, the bill 
was changed to drop electrocution and instead conceal details about executions, 
including the source of execution drugs. It was never passed.

Other states, including Arizona, Missouri and Oklahoma, have passed such 
secrecy laws.

In February, Louisiana corrections officials asked legislators to allow them to 
use nitrogen, which has never been tried in the U.S. No bill was introduced.

Death-penalty opponents have responded to drawn-out executions around the 
country by calling execution methods "experimental."

Last year, a prisoner in Oklahoma tried to rise from the gurney after his 
injections began.

That execution used midazolam, 1 of the 2 drugs called for by Louisiana. It 
prompted Louisiana officials to say they would reconsider the drug.

The state has not said what method it would use instead.

"Obviously whatever plan the state comes up with will have to be evaluated by 
the court for its constitutionality," Montagnes said.

Lawyers are set to meet July 11, 2016, to set a new trial date in his lawsuit.

(source: The Lens)






OHIO:

U.S. appeals court stays Ohio death row inmate's potential execution


A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday granted an Ohio death row inmate's request to 
stay his potential execution, saying lower courts failed to properly weigh his 
intellectual abilities.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati said in its 
opinion that Ohio state courts incorrectly applied the law with regard to 
whether Andre Williams was intellectually disabled. It sent the case back to 
the district court to reconsider Williams' argument that he was ineligible for 
the death penalty because of his low mental capabilities.

"We note that clearly established federal law ... requires courts to consider 
all relevant evidence bearing on an individual's intellectual functioning," 
Judge Karen Nelson Moore wrote in the ruling.

In 1989, Williams, now 48, was convicted and given the death penalty for the 
aggravated murder of George Melnick, 65, and the attempted rape and attempted 
murder of Katherine Melnick, also 65.

Williams appealed his death sentence, but an Ohio county court and the state's 
11th District Court of Appeals ruled against Williams' right to an evidentiary 
hearing in the matter.

His attorneys argued that records showed Williams at the age of 15 had a 
"social age of 9" and an IQ of 67, which met the criteria for the U.S. Supreme 
Court's standard of intellectual disability.

State attorneys countered Williams' adult IQ was 75, based on a test 
administered in prison. That was within a five-point margin of error of the 
lowest score possible for allowing the death penalty.

Moore admonished the lower court for relying on intelligence tests that are 
imprecise and said the childhood IQ score "was directly relevant to the 
obviously extremely important issue of whether Williams should live or die 
based on his intellectual functioning."

There is no date scheduled for Williams' execution and a district judge has 
stayed all executions in the state until 2016 so Ohio can procure the drugs 
needed in the lethal injection.

(source: Reuters)






TENNESSEE:

Alternative methods key point in lethal injection trial


The state of Tennessee wants a group of death row inmates challenging the 
lethal injection execution procedure to suggest a better way to die.

If they can't, attorneys for the state say Davidson County Chancellor Claudia 
Bonnyman has to uphold the state's lethal injection procedure as it is written.

Assistant Attorney General Scott Sutherland outlined in opening statements 
Tuesday evidence that will be presented during a trial this week and next. He 
is defending Tennessee Department of Corrections protocol that says inmates 
shall be executed with an injection of compounded pentobarbital.

More than 30 inmates on death row say that procedure violates Eighth Amendment 
protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Their attorneys say the 
compounded drug is not reliable and risks prolonged death of several hours.

The case is expected to rely heavily on expert testimony.

Sutherland said based on several U.S. Supreme Court rulings, including one last 
week known as Glossip, the inmates must prove the state's procedure creates 
risk of lingering death or suffering and that there is a better alternative.

He noted that courts in other states have upheld the use of pentobarbital as a 
constitutional method of capital punishment. The most recent of those was the 
Glossip case, when the nation's highest court ruled Oklahoma's procedure - 
which uses a different drug - was constitutional.

Stephen Kissinger, an attorney with Federal Defender Services of Eastern 
Tennessee who is representing the inmates, said in an opening statement that 
Tennessee's procedure creates too much risk of harm and pain to inmates.

He said state protocol calls for prison guards, not trained medical staff, to 
administer deadly doses. He said that increases the potential for mistakes that 
will cause inmates pain.

Kissinger said the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled in past cases that the 
attorneys do not have to provide an alternative method of execution.

The outcome of the trial could lead to execution dates being set, or the judge 
could direct the state to redo its protocol. Bonnyman's decision will likely be 
appealed, which means the death penalty will be tied up in court for a while.

During its first day, the trial drew attention from media, attorneys and law 
students who filled every seat in Bonnyman's small courtroom in Nashville's 
historic downtown courthouse.

In the front row was Elaine Hackerman, a part-time massage therapist who lives 
in Nashville. She formed an email group of about 50 people interested in 
capital punishment after taking a continuing education class on the topic 18 
months ago, she said.

Hackerman planned to sit in on trial as much as possible. She opposes the death 
penalty, for reasons including some condemned inmates have been exonerated and 
her belief that inmates mature and become more docile between the crime and 
execution.

"I don't believe in government killing people," she said during a break in 
trial testimony.

(source: The Tennessean)






USA:

Could the gas chamber return in the US?----The gas chamber remains on the books 
as a possible execution method in some states. Historian and author Scott 
Christianson talks about the gas chamber's surprising past and his expectations 
for the future.


Many Americans know there's a debate over lethal injection, but they may not 
realize that another execution method - the gas chamber - has vanished from 
death row.

Thanks to concern about horrific mishaps and pressure from federal judges, no 
state has put anyone to death by gas since 1999. But the gas chamber remains on 
the books as an execution method in California, Arizona, and Missouri, where 
the attorney general hinted in 2013 that the state could press deathly gas back 
into service amid a debate over lethal injection.

2 other states are on the list with an asterisk. Earlier this year, the 
governor of Oklahoma signed legislation allowing execution via nitrogen gas - 
not previously used in executions - if drugs for lethal injection are 
unavailable or the method is declared illegal. Wyoming has a similar policy in 
place, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

For now, no death row inmate will breathe a last breath of poisonous gas. On 
June 29, the Supreme Court ruled in Oklahoma's favor and allowed it to continue 
lethal injections. Massachusetts historian Scott Christianson, author of 2010's 
The Last Gasp: The Rise and Fall of the American Gas Chamber, was disappointed 
but not defeated. A foe of capital punishment, he believes lethal injection 
belongs in the history books with deadly gas and every other tool of legalized 
execution.

In an interview, Christianson talks about the gas chamber's surprising past, 
his thoughts about reducing harm in executions as they continue, and his 
expectations for the future.

"It's folly to think that we can go ahead and claim that something is 
acceptable and effective and just start killing people," he says, "and then 
years later determine it really is problematic."

Q: Tell us a little bit about the history of the gas chamber, which you explore 
in your book. Who first developed it?

The United States invented the gas chamber, something that was developed by the 
military and really favored by certain chemical interests. It was used for 
decades to kill several hundred people here. But it was picked up by the Nazis, 
who drew upon the experiences of the US and used it to kill more than 1 million 
innocent prisoners during the Holocaust.

Q: How did the Nazi experience affect executions in the US?

It really hung over the capital punishment debate and became one of the reasons 
why California and other states retreated from the gas chamber and began to 
resort to lethal injection.

Q: The gas chamber faded away in the US thanks to the Nazi connection and 
concerns about executions that went terribly wrong. Why has deadly gas come 
back into the debate in states like Oklahoma?

There's an assertion that they don't necessarily need a gas chamber, that they 
could simply use a gas mask or a gas tent, some sort of very limited 
contraption to pump nitrogen gas into somebody who's breathing in order to kill 
them.

In Oklahoma, they did a study that said this method won't pose any kind of 
problems and not not require any kind of medical involvement. It what was said 
about lethal injection, the electric chair, and various other methods that have 
been abandoned because things haven't turned out that way.

Q: What's the connection between the debate over execution by gas and the one 
over euthanasia?

People have said gas will work well because it's used by people who are 
committing suicide as part of the Right to Die movement.

In some countries, the rate of these suicide deaths is becoming very high. It's 
irresponsible to put this method of execution out there and support it in this 
way that's going to encourage its use outside of death row. It's not simply a 
narrow issue of capital punishment.

Q: Many Americans believe that teens shouldn't have sex, but they support 
educating them about how to protect themselves if they do. The idea is to 
reduce harm. Along these lines, does it make sense to identify the most humane 
method of execution and push for it? Capital punishment isn't likely to 
disappear anytime soon, so shouldn't its foes devote some effort to reducing 
its harm while it exists?

It's folly to think that we can go ahead and claim that something is acceptable 
and effective and just start killing people and then years later determine it 
really is problematic.

Q: What do you think will happen next in light of the the Supreme Court's 
ruling?

The people who argue for capital punishment have run out of reasons for it. 
They can't claim that it serves as a deterrent, and they can't claim it saves 
resources or money.

The whole system is problematic and expensive with so much litigation. There 
are so many other factors like people becoming more aware of wrongful 
convictions.

These will still plague the death apparatus regardless of what the court does. 
Gradually, capital punishment will end.

(source: Randy Dotinga, a Monitor contributor, is president of the American 
Society of Journalists and Authors; Christian Science Monitor)

******************

Justices Keep With Death Penalty Status Quo


The U.S. Supreme Court has never invalidated any means to carry out the death 
penalty, and the justices kept with that tradition in its latest lethal 
injection case.

In Glossip v. Gross, the court ruled June 29 against death row inmates who 
challenged Oklahoma's use of midazolam, a sedative typically used to treat 
anxiety, in executions because of a risk of excruciating pain. While the 
opinion quells any more legal debate about the drug itself, which came to 
national attention after a string of high-profile botched executions including 
Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma, the evolving and complicated public debate over 
the death penalty itself will likely continue to get louder.

"Because capital punishment is constitutional, there must be a constitutional 
means of carrying it out," Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the 5-4 majority.

The opinion and dissents reveal a deep gulf between the justices on the issue - 
on one end of the spectrum, the more conservative justices are growing tired of 
death penalty challenges at large, and on the other, at least one justice is 
unwilling to recognize the constitutionality of the death penalty at all moving 
forward.

(source: Law Week Colorado)